Latino Heritage Festival

This is my first blog post, so cheers to me ;)!  I've read a lot of talented blogs and through a friend was inspired to start my own.  I am a little nervous...but here goes.  So a friend of mine and I decided to venture down to the Latino Heritage Festival in downtown Des Moines today.  We had another friend there, a fitness instructor, who was demonstrating Zumba, and we went to see her.  We braved the cold, wind, and rain to make it down!

Didn't scare us.  Nope.  We brought our umbrellas and our "toughness." 

We made a beeline towards the food carts.  First stop--pupusas!  El Salvador's national food with its very own national DAY (that would be November 13th).  A thick corn masa soft shell stuffed with cheese and your choice (whether that be pork, beans, spinach etc.--there are plenty of other choices that weren't offered at this particular cart).  The pupusa was then fried and served with curtido (a tangy coleslaw flavored with chiles and vinegar).  The combination was delicious!  We washed that down with horchata (cinnamon rice milk).  I was also enticed by the baklava (NOT Latino) and had to have some of that also.  I appreciated the corndogs, turkey legs, BAKLAVA--and was only a little confused that they were all there.  I suppose for that picky kid ;).

Here's a picture of the pupusa:

Different booths were set up with information about a particular Latino country, information about businesses etc.  We waltzed our way through there and collected pens, magnets, and the like.  I can always appreciate a good pen... 

As a nurse, I was excited to run into the Walgreens' Wellness Tour with free health screenings.  The health screenings were in a converted Winnebago (shelter + heat + health = win).  There were free screenings for glucose (diabetes is very prevalent in the Latino community, as it is with many) and cholesterol, BMI and body fat percentage, AND the most exciting part (and I'm not kidding) was they could check your bone density through your foot.  I send so many people to have DEXA scans, where you have to lie still on a table for a few minutes.  This test literally took a minute.  Granted this wasn't as accurate, but I just thought that was really cool!  Checked out healthy.  I was a little scared with the bone density/Diet Coke leaching out my bones, but was fine.

Friend didn't get to demonstrate Zumba for very long due to the rain, but it was nice to catch up.  Would love to go next year!  I enjoy learning about different cultures.  What types of events are going on where you are from?